Naomi Westermanhttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:02:10 +0000 en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngNaomi Westermanhttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com
The Right to Write: why finding your Truth matters (and a list of stupid shit people have said to me as an emerging writer)https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/the-right-to-write-why-finding-your-truth-matters-and-a-list-of-stupid-shit-people-have-said-to-me-as-an-emerging-writer/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/the-right-to-write-why-finding-your-truth-matters-and-a-list-of-stupid-shit-people-have-said-to-me-as-an-emerging-writer/#commentsThu, 24 Jan 2019 10:50:47 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=561More]]>This month, playwright James Graham was the subject of some social media abuse over his decision to write a drama (Brexit: The Uncivil War) covering recent political events. Not over the content of the drama — no one had seen it yet — but over the fundamental question of a writer’s right to dramatise contemporary issues of their choosing.

Though I have never received abuse for my work (though I’ve learned male critics really, really hate it if you use the word “feminist” in your marketing blurb), it struck a chord. One of the most essential things for any writer is to learn to trust their own voice, and it’s one I’ve struggled with.

When I started writing my first play in 2014, I barely knew what a playwright was — I only knew there was a story I desperately needed to tell. I can see now how flawed and unsophisticated that play is, but it had a passion and an authenticity people responded to, and that play (while still unproduced outside of rehearsed readings and festival performances) brought me to industry attention and kick-started my career. An enormous privilege, but that attention brought with it pressure and censorship. When you are “emerging” (especially if you are female, young, disabled, from a minority background, etc.) everyone wants to tell you how to write, and what to write. It’s hard to balance feeling you should be grateful (is this a uniquely female thing?) that your olders and wisers are taking an interest, with the overwhelmment of other people’s often unsolicited opinions.
Some examples of things I’ve been told as an emerging writer:

*Don’t ever try to write more than one play a year, because not even the best writers can write more than one thing a year without the quality suffering.

*Never work on more than one thing at once.

*You’re Jewish — why are you not writing Jewish plays??

*You need to write at least some male characters into this [all-female] play or people won’t connect with it.

*You should turn [comedy play] into a straight drama, because mental illness is a serious subject. [In a playwright development programme, from a director who kept telling the cast to “work against the text” in front of me.]

*Write about disabled people!

*Don’t write about disabled people because you’ll get pigeonholed.

*Don’t write about disabled people because you don’t look disabled.

*You can write about disabled people I guess, but not characters with disabilities that are not your disability.

*You should only portray disabled characters positively, because disabled people get enough stick already.

*You need to give the men bigger roles, because the male characters come across as quite under-written [about a play that intentionally had men in non-speaking walk-on roles only].

*We assumed you’d write something naturalistic?!

*We assumed you’d want to write a relationship drama?

*We assumed you’d want to write a one-act?!

*Realistically, never write for more than three characters.

*Don’t try to write about ‘ethnic issues’ because you look white.

*Why are you writing about queer women?

*Why are you not writing about queer women?

*This play you wrote about LGBT characters doesn’t have any real physical intimacy; you’re portraying lesbians as sexless!

*This other play you wrote about LGBT characters has a cunnilingus reference; you’re portraying lesbians as sex-obsessed!

*Try to write for studio spaces because as a woman you probably won’t be able to stage bigger plays.

I mean, yeah, some of that is just notes, and some of it is fellow creatives having a valid opinion over work they were collaborating on, but it’s still depressing. And if I wasn’t in my thirties with a bolshiness won from decades of life experience, if I was young and trying to figure out who I was, I’m not sure if I’d be strong enough to anchor my own voice within a storm of well-intentioned but undermining advice. (And that’s not even mentioning critics.)

None of this remotely compares to the firestorm created by Brexit: The Uncivil War of course, but Fergus Morgan’s beautifully articulated review contrasts the authenticity of fiction with the “fact”-based anger of critical response:

“What is most depressing about the responses to Graham’s drama, from those screamed out on Twitter to those dashed off by media commentators, is that so many […] mistake Graham for a reporter rather than a writer, and his TV show a documentary rather than a drama. That so many of them can’t find it within them to trust a writer. […] Only a fool would think his drama was attempting to hoodwink people into swallowing a rewritten version of history. He’s trying to do what he’s always tried to do. To fiddle and fictionalise the world around him to drive at something deeper. To discard the truth, in search of the truth. To make people think about the world around them.”

I’ve always written. I’ve written my entire life since I was a small child, but I’ve never shown anyone by writing before (or maybe felt too scared/insecure/unworthy). Writing has always been an intensely private thing; a form of catharsis and a way of accessing some tiny authentic space deep within myself. I found my own truth through writing. Becoming a “professional” writer overnight, where suddenly truth was less important than commercial appeal, having that private space cannibalised, commodified — reviewed! — was psychologically destabilising. Then the year before last I landed my first and second commissions. One wasn’t taken past first draft because I wrote a crazy avant-garde dsytopian sci-fi and they wanted contemporary naturalistic drama, and I left the second – adapting a memoir – over lack of creative control. In frustration I decided to write and self-produce a play at a fringe festival (to take back control #irony), but I underestimated my commitments and wound up putting something on stage long before it was ready. These are the pressures and choices all but independently wealthy artists struggle with. Writing for commission curtails freedom, but it’s hard to devote adequate time to a project when no one is paying you.

After three failed shows I really didn’t know what to do and (coupled with some personal issues), I didn’t write for six months. I seriously questioned my future as a writer. Then out of the blue, immediately after the worst personal trauma of my adult life, I got an email saying I’d been selected to be one of eight who would work with James to create a collaborative stage production, Sketching, for Wilton’s Music Hall that autumn. What followed was one of the most personally and professionally life-changing experiences.

Sketching could have been a nightmare. Nine competing voices, nine competing egos in one room? Trying to write a full-length play in a matter of weeks? Yet somehow nine merged into one to create something extraordinary, and credit has to go to the profoundly nurturing environment of true creative expression and unconditional support (without an atom of the weird cultural Svengalism that so often creeps in when established men mentor emerging women) which James created. It was a singular experience, one we all benefited and learned from. For me, such untrammelled artistic support was key. Creating a stage production always involves compromise, but I never felt pressure to change or alter my voice or my intentions. It was truly the first time that I’ve been made to feel, unreservedly, that my voice mattered. That my voice deserved to be heard. That my voice didn’t need a ton of experience or fancy academic qualifications to be valid. That my voice was good enough. That I didn’t need to justify my truth. If only all artists were accorded such respect.

In a Stage article about Sketching a few months ago, James wrote of the need for theatre figures to “intervene” to help emerging writers, using the metaphor of a pebble dropped in a river. Something about that visual — the passive rather than active influence of a tiny object disrupting the vast flow of the status quo – both tickled and moved me. But I don’t think only emerging writers need support to empower their voices, I think everyone does. I’m very grateful that James was my pebble. I hope and try to be that for others, too; now and in the future. #BeMorePebble.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/the-right-to-write-why-finding-your-truth-matters-and-a-list-of-stupid-shit-people-have-said-to-me-as-an-emerging-writer/feed/1screen shot 2018-07-04 at 16.50.11naomiwesterman1WWLKD? In praise of pushy women.https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/wwlkd-in-praise-of-pushy-women/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/wwlkd-in-praise-of-pushy-women/#respondSat, 09 Sep 2017 11:26:47 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=399More]]>The other day I tweeted something calling myself “pushy” which got quite an interesting reaction, and it made me think about gender politics.*

I was raised in a way that is perceived as stereotypically quite male. My father was a mathematician, my family numbers several scientists, and I was taught maths and encouraged into science and engineering-related play (Lego, and building robots) from literally the crib onwards.** I was allowed to dress however I wanted and within reason do whatever I wanted, which was mostly building things and running around exploring and climbing trees. My school encouraged my aptitude for maths, science and engineering. And because I didn’t have anyone trying to censor me, I never put limits on my own ambitions or personality.

I was fortunate to grow up completely unaware these were considered “not girl things” or that my personality was/is not “feminine”. I grew up thinking there were no boundaries on my ability to achieve. And then I got disabled and everything came to a complete halt for a long time, and when I started to recover I felt that I’d wasted so much time, I never wanted to have brakes on me again. When I started writing something just clicked, and I didn’t see any reason not to throw myself into it with everything I have. I was, and perhaps still am, quite naive in assuming my writing was the only thing that matters.

It should be the only thing that matters.

When I started writing, everyone told me how hard it was. Writing isn’t hard; dealing with people is hard. For the first time I’m having to deal with other people having opinions about me and coming off a lifetime of being mostly invisible that’s really fucking weird. I’ve been told I talk too much, that I’m too ambitious, too open about being ambitious, too forward, too shy, too angry, too apologetic, that I talk too much about feminism and disability rights. I’ve been told I’m a role model and an inspiration and a personal hero. It’s a lot to shoulder.

Leslie Knope is my personal hero. It’s so refreshing to see a woman on TV who is smart and ambitious and unashamedly pushy. Leslie Knope is so extra it’s hilarious, but her ambitions are taken seriously. Be More Lesley.

Early in my acting career I was in a horrific fringe production where the cast were responsible for rewriting the “script” (a dire foreign language screenplay that had been Babelfished into English) into something vaguely understandable. Three of us argued for major edits, the others felt their job was to create as literal a translation as possible. When the production fell apart (for various reasons), one of the other actresses called me out for being “aggressive” but didn’t say a word to the men who had been arguing far more loudly and lengthily. It’s depressing to realise your behaviour is considered “pushy” or “aggressive” because of your gender. Do men ever get called pushy? Do men care if they’re thought of as being pushy?

Society conditions women to be nice, be caring, and to feel responsible for managing others’ emotions. Sometimes it can be hard not to feel pressure to make sure other people are comfortable, and blaming yourself if they’re not. In the past I’ve been guilty of not standing up for myself, letting people walk over me and put me in situations I wasn’t comfortable with, being too apologetic, and then getting angry at them for my inability to speak up. It’s such a passive aggressive thing to do, and quite a martyr thing, and it’s so toxic. But I’ve realised that as long as I behave according to my own standards and boundaries, it’s not my job police anyone else’s feelings. Be respectful of others, yes. But not try to predict or pre-apologise or second guess what people are thinking.

Last year a married co-worker kept aggressively hitting on me, and when I confronted him to tell him to stop, he turned it on me and tried to make out that I’d been pursuing him and he’d been too nice to tell me no. Which: fuck that. It ended up being a pretty good life lesson, and that life lesson really is: fuck that. You’re a grown man, you’re a decade older than me, a foot taller, you come from a wealthy and privileged background, and you’re in a position of power over me. Don’t play the victim and pretend you’re just too innocent and helpless and nice*** to stand up to some random woman. Take responsibility for your actions.

So I’ve decided I’m not going to give headspace to it any more. I’m quite self-aware. I have good boundaries and a decent ability to read people and read a room. I can tell when I’m not wanted and the last thing I’d ever want is to be somewhere where I’m not welcome. If I’m being too pushy, it’s on you to tell me. But there’s nothing wrong with being pushy.

Pushy women rule the world.

*Everything makes me think about gender politics.

**My dad put posters of the times tables over my crib and used to give me a pound for reciting them correctly.

***Nice Guy tm

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/wwlkd-in-praise-of-pushy-women/feed/0knope_campaign_rectnaomiwesterman1“Where do you get your ideas from?” Genesis of a play.https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/where-do-you-get-your-ideas-from-genesis-of-a-play/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/where-do-you-get-your-ideas-from-genesis-of-a-play/#commentsFri, 26 May 2017 11:49:38 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=388More]]>I don’t tend to write or talk much about the actual writing process, mainly because I’m so still new I don’t feel I can necessarily offer much. But I’ve recently been working on a play that had what for me was an unusual conception, and I thought it might be helpful to detail it. One of the questions people constantly ask about writing is “where do your ideas come from?”and it’s a weirdly difficult question to answer. My first play Tortoise burst into life e so fully and immediately, I didn’t need to think about what or how to write. It’s easy to fall into the myth of inspiration striking out of the blue, and sometimes that does happen, but more often it’s just plain hard work and trying different pieces together till something fits. Some plays are lightning bolts. Some plays are jigsaw puzzles, except you have to carve all the pieces yourself, out of tissue paper, live snakes, and cheese.

Anyway.

Last week I was in the Birmingham Rep’s rehearsal rooms with Graeae, working on my new play ‘War Pig.’ And this is how War Pig came about:

1. It started from the title. “War Pig” became a Graeae running joke (don’t ask, but also do google it*) and I immediately fixed upon the idea of calling a play War Pig. I threw around a few ideas, but nothing stuck.

2. I’ve been doing regular ‘stuff’ with the Bush Theatre for about 18 months (got my feet under the table doing Neighbourhood Project and due to them being the nicest people ever just sort of stuck around*). In one workshop we were given a writing exercise: to create a character based on a button and a list of questions. I chose a military uniform button and created an elderly Jewish woman who was a military widow. I had my character, but nowhere to put her.

3. Then the women’s marches happened. I didn’t go, and bitterly regretted it. I felt moved to write something about the women’s march, as if it would make up for not being there. Could my elderly Jewish lady go on a woman’s march? Bit flat.

4. Late at night, wapped from travel, reality show-passing-as-documentary on. Elderly celebrities explore approaches to ageing in other cultures. Which somehow translates to Miriam Margolyes in a Florida retirement community. The nicest people in the world, with guns and Trump posters. Well, of course Donald Trump is the War Pig! Warped utopia is one of my favourite genres (settings?) anyway; it’s just so rich. What if my elderly Jewish lady was living in a Trump-loving idyll?

So there you have it. Two elderly Jewish ladies (I decided she needed a friend) living in a Florida retirement community in the heart of Trump country decide to organise a two-person woman’s march. Sounds like a play.

Other inspirations for War Pig: my mother; my grandparents; the X Files episode ‘Arcadia’; the one time I took an all-inclusive beach resort vacation and it was really fucking creepy.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/where-do-you-get-your-ideas-from-genesis-of-a-play/feed/1Bearded pig
Sus barbatus
Sumatra London Zoonaomiwesterman1Proudly Messy, or: Fuck Your Conditional Mental Illness Acceptancehttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/proudly-messy-or-fuck-your-conditional-mental-illness-acceptance/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/proudly-messy-or-fuck-your-conditional-mental-illness-acceptance/#respondTue, 09 May 2017 10:48:03 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=367More]]>I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently about mental illness stigma in theatre/acting, and the steps being taken to combat it. Everyone seems to agree it’s important. But everyone is so damn obsessed with proving how ‘okay’ they are with mental illness they forget the most crucial element: being okay with mental illness means being okay with the behaviour and symptoms of mental illness. No one judges someone with cancer or MS for being sad, tearful, angry, fatigued, etc. So why is it that people with mental illness are often only accepted if they take their meds and ‘behave’, especially when the range of acceptable behaviour for people who are officially ‘sane’ is so broad?

Bad behaviour can be pretty damn rife here. I’m sure most people who work in theatre/screen have witnessed screaming tantrums, drug abuse. Directors doing impersonations of small Italian children making false child abuse allegations (“dadda spanka my botty-bot and I fink he like it!”).* That’s all fine and dandy if you aren’t labelled as mentally ill, especially if you’re a man, not to go into the gender politics.

I do not want your acceptance of my mental illness if it’s dependent on me playing along to some standard of what’s considered mentally healthy/acceptable behaviour, particularly if that standard doesn’t apply to everyone.

People always perceive your behaviour through the prism of their own experiences and perception of you, and if you are open about having ever struggled with mental health they perceive all your behaviour through the prism of “mental illness.” If you behave with anything other than 100% perfect Walton-esque TV-mom cheery stability it’s perceived as being evidence of mental instability, while an officially ‘mentally healthy’ person can go to more extreme behaviour without suffering the same judgement. (And I’m not even going go into the ways in which women are labelled as being crazy, hysterical, hormonal, etc. as a control mechanism.)

I’ve worked in the industry since I was a child; I have seen some outrageous shit. This is simply not a job nor an industry that rewards or is possibly even compatible with perfect level emotions and behaviour. Not to be all wanky or promulgate the tortured artiste myth, but both writing and acting involve some pretty deep explorations of the soul. It’s messy, sometimes. Shit happens in rehearsal rooms that can take people to a pretty dark place sometimes; ditto writing. I know I couldn’t do my job without being willing to dive into that darkness and messiness.

I wrote some dialogue in my first play (set in, hey-hey, a mental hospital) talking about how psychiatric patients are the explorers of the psyche (I managed to work in a reference to the Trieste as part of some tortured metaphor) and I kinda still think that. Art needs to go to the frontiers, because some one has to.

This is a bathyscaphe, which is a good word. Mainly I didn’t want to use a cliched image or one promoting a stereotype of mental health.

I want to tell you a story: I was groped by an industry figure last year, and due to past experienced/PTSD it made me have a minor breakdown. Now I’m a smart, competent woman and I’ve lived with my own brain for a long time: I know how to take care of my shit. I am extremely proactive in managing my mental health. The minute I realised I was sinking I made a GP appointment, I made a therapy appointment, I started being vigilant about exercising and going outside in the mornings and filling my social calendar. I did everything right. I worked so hard and I did absolutely everything right and I managed to work and be productive throughout and to get over the breakdown completely in a matter of months.

And I was destroyed by it. It burned bridges. People noticeably distanced themselves.** One woman completely cut contact because apparently the fact I cried in front of them one time and told them that I’d been groped meant I had “poor boundaries” and was “unstable” (oh and apparently being groped was my own fault and I must never, ever tell anyone else**). I still don’t know what kind of gossip it might have sparked or what damage it’s done to my reputation or my career in the long-term. Of course the guy who got coked off his tits and ran around sticking his tongue into random people’s ears and grabbing strange women’s breasts in public doesn’t get accused of having poor boundaries.

Actually I don’t think I can ignore the gender politics. You know ***** ******? You know, that powerful guy every single young male actor has a horror story about? I’ve heard several blokes making casual reference (sometimes in front of large groups of strangers) to “oh that time ***** ****** told me he was going to bum me LOL.” I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that male victims of sexual harassment are expected to laugh it off, or that men are allowed to laugh it off.

Twitter informs me it is Mental Health Awareness Week. I don’t know how to finish writing this except to say: keep talking. And if anyone is suffering know I will never judge you.

* Okay that one’s probably unique.
** This is not to ignore those who were supportive, because honestly 90% of the people I told or who were around were overwhelmingly wonderful.
*** LOLNOPE.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/proudly-messy-or-fuck-your-conditional-mental-illness-acceptance/feed/0Bathyscaphe_Triestenaomiwesterman1So I walked out on an audition: disability access and discrimination in actinghttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/so-i-walked-out-on-an-audition-disability-access-and-discrimination-in-acting/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/so-i-walked-out-on-an-audition-disability-access-and-discrimination-in-acting/#commentsMon, 08 May 2017 13:31:36 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=339More]]>So last week I walked out of my first acting audition in a year and told the panel to remove my application.

In theory I quit acting when I started getting enough writing work to prove a full-time job, removing myself from Spotlight and Equity. But I l love acting, even though I hate being an actor and all the shit that comes with it, and occasionally something sounds so incredible you can’t say no.

I don’t actively seek out acting work but I was told about a project that exactly hit my interests, that was looking for disabled actors. I emailed and was asked to audition. Unfortunately the audition venue was not disabled accessible. Now, my mobility problems are relatively mild or at least fluctuate enough that I can pass as able-bodied, or cope with lack of access. Yeah I can crawl up stairs, but should I have to? If I’m in pain how can I do good work? I withdrew my application because I am sick of having to constantly compromise over basic legal rights, and I wouldn’t even mind so much but it’s flabbergasting that a company looking for disabled actors would not consider the possibility disabled actors might have access requirements. It’s a wonder to me that any disabled person ever becomes an actor at all. And honestly I got so used to it as an actor I took it for granted, but becoming a professional writer (and writing for the wonderful Graeae) has taught me I don’t have to compromise.

As an actor I always felt shy of speaking about disability issues, mostly because disabled actors do suffer such discrimination, but also because I uncomfortable with being able bodied-passing/having an invisible disability. I’d look at the few prominent actors with visible disabilities and rejoice in their success but feel alienated. For a long time I wasn’t sure if I could call myself a disabled actor or even what that term meant. I’ve since met other actors in the same boat, but too often disabled actors are treated as a homogenised mass. When you think about the range of people with disabilities that’s not only unhelpful, it’s downright ludicrous.

People with disabilities run the gamut from individuals at the peak of physical strength and fitness; athletes and dancers who put most able-bodied people to shame, to those whose bodies are not capable of the most basic tasks, to everyone in between. “Disabled actor” can mean someone who cannot walk, someone who can walk with help, someone who can sometimes walk, someone with no issue walking. It can mean someone with a serious chronic physical illness or someone in good health with a permanent injury that they may have been born with or may have suffered recently after a long life as an able-bodied person. It can mean someone who is physically able-bodied but has mental problems, or someone with vision or hearing difficulties. All of which require very different forms of accommodation.

Equity are working on a database of accessible casting venues and it’s shocking how many are not. Even Spotlight is not! Typecasting is a problem but if we can’t physically get into the room, we are literally and metaphorically being blocked out of our industry. What can we do? I give thanks every day that I’m lucky/talented/have sacrificed enough goats to Satan to make a living as a writer. It’s nice — no, it’s not nice, it’s sanity-saving — to be in a position to be able to walk away and refuse to compromise but I don’t know if that helps anyone else.

My own personal pet peeve is people claiming they’re accessible when they’re not. In my experience no one ever says “no” to that question, perhaps because they think they’re not allowed to, or they’re frightened they’re going to be sued. But it’s okay, really; not everything is right for everyone. Not every single job is going to be suitable for the entire range of ability status. If you’re casting for a ballet dancer and the role requires pointe work, that is going to rule out some people with mobility issues. But there are disabled ballet dancers (who may or may not have access needs) who can do the job. Being disability-friendly doesn’t mean “open to anyone.” It means working your hardest not to exclude anyone who can do the job.

But it is extraordinary. A few years ago I had a screen test as part of a major TV network “disabled actor talent search.” The auditions were held in a basement in central London with a very small lift. I witnessed one person leaving as his wheelchair didn’t fit inside. And these are auditions specifically to discover disabled talent! It would be ironic if it wasn’t so painful. On another similar scheme I had a TV producer walk in and say, “What’s wrong with YOU?!”

I attended a [Major Theatre Company] workshop for amateur actors last year (as a novice director) and the workshop leader had a go at the attendees for sitting down during a break. “When professional actors work, we never ever sit down during the entire rehearsal session!” This upset me greatly, because it just seems so rooted in an inherent belief that acting and physical ability are inseparable. The ignorance in just assuming that everyone is able-bodied is extraordinary. Especially as this was a session aimed explicitly at regular people who are members of amateur dramatics societies, and the attendees were certainly far more diverse (in all ways, including age, body shape and background) than you’d find in a professional MTC rehearsal room. It might seem like a small thing, but allowing actors a short break to sit down might be the difference between a disabled person being able to participate or not. If you come into the rehearsal room with the attitude, “If you’re not able to stand and run around for hours without a break, you’re simply not capable of being an actor” is fundamentally ignorant of the hegemony of able-bodied privileged.

At the height or perhaps depth of my disability, when I was struggling with serious mobility problems, I was asked to attend a group workshop audition for a theatre company known for making physical theatre. Knowing their work I really wasn’t sure if this was right for me and talked with them extensively over email about my doubts. They assured me that were 100% disability friendly and insisted that I attend and that they could accommodate me. What this translated to was a wheelchair ramp and an audition room on the ground floor. But the auditionees all waited in a non-accessible second floor green room, and the audition itself required a level of physicality I wasn’t capable of (much, much running furiously around the room) so I was forced to spend half the session sitting by the side watching. The workshop leader making the utterly inexplicable decision to inform the entire room that I had “a sprained ankle” really didn’t help matters. I have no idea what was going through his head. Did he think he was helping me? Did he assume that my youth and appearance meant I couldn’t be the disabled actor he’d been told was attending? Had he been told at all? I don’t know.

But really, if being able to run around and jump over things is a requirement, that’s fine, but say so! Don’t pretend you’re able to accommodate mobility-disabled actors when what you really mean is “we have a wheelchair ramp but you’ll have to sit in a corner and watch.” Because I’m obviously not going to be able to actually audition, and I’m obviously not going to get the job. All it does is waste both of our time. Don’t do that. Please. Say no to me.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/so-i-walked-out-on-an-audition-disability-access-and-discrimination-in-acting/feed/1Cr6Q0IpWcAUqJC1naomiwesterman1361601126_91f238e6c8_zPlaywrights vs Directors and tiny new saplings: Who gets ownership of new plays?https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/playwrights-vs-directors-and-tiny-new-saplings-who-gets-ownership-of-new-plays/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/playwrights-vs-directors-and-tiny-new-saplings-who-gets-ownership-of-new-plays/#respondSat, 08 Apr 2017 15:05:08 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=311More]]>One thing I’m increasingly interested in debating and mentally chewing over is the role of the playwright in rehearsals, the relationship between the creatives and the play, and in a broader sense the concept of shared ownership and authority over plays. I’ve had some rather… thought-provoking experiences in the relatively short time I’ve been writing, and I keep seeing blogs and discussions about it.

I was reading an article with playwright Joe Penhall the other day and he said:
“It’s quite an old-fashioned idea that we’re all here to serve the play, from front of house to costume to the director. That idea is gone, it’s archaeology, you will not find a director in town that wants just to serve the play, or you will but they won’t be a careerist director. The directors who want to build a career are all trying to find ways to put their stamp on it and reinvent it.”

And Jayne Benjulian, writing on American theatre culture (from 2011 but doing the rounds today and still as relevant), made this wise observation: “There is no manual that could possibly prepare [playwrights] for what they will encounter. Each time they enter a theater, they enter a culture with new rules. […] There are playwrights who demand to be equal partners with their directors. These playwrights are known as “difficult.” Here is what playwright Bill Cain would call “the cognitive dissonance of theater”: On the one hand, the playwright is told that theater is uniquely a writer’s medium; on the other, he is told to sit in the back and shut up.”

Theatre is so inherently collaborative, yet has few rules. We are expected to be joined by a mutual passion for ART that smooths over all differences in interpretation. But differences in interpretation can be huge. Of course a director should bring their own interpretation; a play text is not an IKEA instruction manual to be followed to the letter. But any directorial interpretation has to come from the script and be justified by the script. A director who tries to shove their own style onto a script that doesn’t fit it is a poor one.

My first play was a dark drama about mental illness but it had a lot of expressionistic and surrealist sort of wacky comedy in it, and the comedy was crucial. I wasn’t able to attend rehearsals for the first staging of it (it started out as a 30-minute festival piece) due to pneumonia, and I was excited to allow the director free rein. I still am excited by that, but it only works if writer and director have mutual respect and understanding of the text. I think it also helped that it was for a scratch festival performance, because such things are low-stakes opportunities to develop and play. The director took the play in a physical theatre-direction which was not especially my vision for it, but the directorial choices were informed by the text and I was very happy with the end results. The first director who was (temporarily) attached to the full-length play wanted to do it as a straight naturalistic drama, which meant instructing the actors to “play against the script”. I don’t know if that’s really how they interpreted the script or if it was just their personal style preference, but it meant some scenes did not and in my opinion could not work.

“Theresa Rebeck reminds us in her book Fire Free Zone, “in the rehearsal hall, the playwright is often asked not to speak directly to the actors because that could ‘confuse’ them—in other words, it might undermine the director’s authority.” That caution rests on a supposition, Cain says, that actors should not be confused. Might confusion serve as a productive force early in rehearsals? Might actors be more engaged in the process of the play’s meaning?” (Benjulian, 2011)

That’s a really interesting aspect, but “actors could get confused” is so euphemistic, isn’t it? Actors are not children. I find the opposite is often true. Actors generally sign on to plays because they like the script (and actors who don’t perhaps should be reconsidered – I had an actor once say on the first day of rehearsals, “I haven’t read the script but I really want to get a foot in the door with [director] because it would be really good for my career” – gah!). If actors like and have an emotional connection to the script and the character as written, what does it do to them and their process to have a director who wants to change it? I’ve had actors contacting me privately to complain about directors mangling the script’s intentions, which I just think is awful and puts me in a terrible position: of course I have an agenda in wanting the production that’s true to the text, but supporting mutiny is disastrous. I would always publicly support my director, but as a director if your actors are complaining that you don’t understand the script then something’s gone wrong.

And this is all very arty, but we can’t ignore the practical side. A playwright, particularly playwrights like me who are in the early stages, we have to be concerned with our own careers. I consider writing to be my job: it’s how I pay the bills and I plan to be a lifetime career writer. I’m not just wafting around making “art”. A bad production at this stage of my career, or a production that misrepresents me as a writer, could do genuine damage to my ability to get more jobs. A metaphor so clunky I’d never use it in a play: plays are like trees. Hamlet is the mightiest ancient oak. You can do anything to do it and it won’t die. You can fuck with it in any kind of way, cut it to shreds, edit it. You can set it in the past, present, or future; on a space station or underwater. You can make it a parable for any war or political situation you care to choose. You can stage it as a mime, kabuki, a dance, an opera. You can perform it in literally any language on earth, including Klingon, and it will still be Hamlet. Even if it’s shit, Hamlet is still Hamlet. There will never, ever be a production of Hamlet that’s so bad, it destroys Hamlet. But a piece of new writing is a helpless seedling. If the first production is terrible and done without due care it will die. I love the idea of handing a play over to a director and seeing what they create afresh (a production) out of the raw material (the script) you’ve given them. Love it. I have no issue with directors changing or radically interpreting my work. In a production of an existing play you can do whatever you like because you’re only doing it to that one production. The original script remains intact and future directors will be going to the original text. With a new play and especially a play being workshopped, whatever edits you make are for good.

In Britain we are constantly told how privileged we are as playwrights, that we are spoiled. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told, “Of course if you were in Germany you wouldn’t even be allowed in the rehearsal room.” Personally I think the current obsession with and deification of German and Dutch contemporary theatre and the assumption of the position of the writer there is a bit reductive. I’ve seen great plays and terrible plays in Berlin. I mean, I love Katie Mitchell’s work but I’d hardly call her not a writer’s director. I’d consider her very much a writer’s director.

So what’s the answer? I don’t know, but I think respect for yourself and your work, even if you’re a beginner. I’ve said yes to things and to people because I was over-excited, or flattered (It’s like when you’re in high school and someone really popular asks you out and you’re so excited thinking, “OMG the headcheerleader just asked me out” it doesn’t occur to you to think about whether you’re actually compatible), or thought working with a ‘famous’ person would get the play attention, or felt I couldn’t let an opportunity slip by. Coming from acting where getting a foot in the door is difficult to the point you’re scared to turn down any opportunity has meant quite a dramatic attitude shift.

Fundamentally, know yourself and your own work. Ask questions. Ask for discussions before saying yes. And don’t be afraid to say no, because a no is not a rejection. There are two directors who I respect enormously, who I think are talented and whose productions I enjoy – but I would never allow either of them to direct one of my plays and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual because we’re just too different in our working styles. And that’s absolutely fine. But it’s taken some time and emotional maturing to get to that realisation and with everything it’s still a work in progress.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/playwrights-vs-directors-and-tiny-new-saplings-who-gets-ownership-of-new-plays/feed/0naomiwesterman1van Hove’s Dutch Shakespeare and BSL: On disability, language, awkwardness, and accessibility in the artshttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/van-hoves-dutch-shakespeare-and-bsl-on-disability-language-awkwardness-and-accessibility-in-the-arts/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/van-hoves-dutch-shakespeare-and-bsl-on-disability-language-awkwardness-and-accessibility-in-the-arts/#respondThu, 23 Mar 2017 12:02:22 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=272More]]>On Friday I watched a monologue of mine performed entirely in sign. On Sunday I watched six hours of Shakespeare performed entirely in Dutch.

I am spending a year writing with disabled theatre company Graeae as part of Write to Play, and last week saw a ‘sharing’ of some work-in-progress. A monologue extract from a sci-fi horror I’ve been developing was beautifully performed by actress Nadia Nadarajah, who happens to be deaf. My piece was performed in BSL (British Sign Language), and this is not only the first time I’ve worked on a theatre piece involving sign but the first time I’ve seen a piece performed in sign.

The experience of being in the rehearsal room and the process of interpreting my text into sign was fascinating; more so was the different reactions from an audience comprised of both deaf, hearing, signing and non-signing members.

One of the things about discussing (no less living with!) disability is the awkwardness factor. It’s uncomfortable to write about, but sometimes situations around disability can be awkward, or involve unknown etiquette. For example, I have a neurological condition which sometimes if tired causes me to make unconscious and uncontrollable odd facial expressions or grimaces; I have no idea to what extent this is even noticeable to others, but I feel uncomfortable at the thought this might make it harder for deaf people who lip read to understand me. But how do you even ask? I’m barely comfortable admitting to this on my own blog. For able-bodied people the sense of awkwardness and not knowing the correct etiquette can be embarrassing, and a common reaction to embarrassment is laughter. Watching your work performed for the first time is always horrible, but I have to admit I was rather thrown by some initial embarrassed laughter that seemed to be due to seeing an actor performing in BSL (Nadia’s character was recording a goodbye message to her family ahead of her probable execution – not exactly chuckletown). Audience members who were deaf or had experience with deafness or knew sign had a different response, both to the performance and to the laughter. Yet the audience as a whole very quickly got over any initial uncertainty.

Over the last few years I’ve seen Shakespeare performed in a range of languages I do not speak, including some of the Globe to Globe Festival’s 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 different languages. These productions were designed for audiences who for the most part did not speak the languages in question, and were interpreted using physicalities and staging to “explore Shakespeare’s cultural universality” by refracting the plays through different cultures and cultural experiences. Language, here, was no barrier to understanding.

But Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is big enough to handle whatever you throw at it. There will never be a production of Hamlet so bad it makes the world go, “Wow I always thought Hamlet was a good play, turns out we were all wrong!” Even the worst Shakespeare production will only ever be considered a bad production, not a bad play. New writing does not have that luxury. A bad first production of a new play can kill it in infancy, because who can know if it’s the production or the play?

Although my piece was accompanied by a translator, a couple of people mentioned afterwards that they’d found it hard to connect with the material due to having to mentally combine the non-verbal acting with the transcription. That was sort of a lightbulb moment for me, because surely that’s what a lot of deaf audience members have to deal with every time they go to the theatre? A production might have one or two captioned performances in a run of several months (and how often is caption board placed in some discreet place or way off to the side so the “regular” audience members aren’t bothered by the intrusion of being reminded non able bodied people exist? Better hope deaf theatre-lovers have good osteopaths for all that neck strain!) and we consider than a triumph of accessibility.

Now, I am a very wordy writer. Too wordy. My writing is dense, and packed full of literary allusions, scientific jargon, and intricate wordplay. Inevitably if you are watching something in a language you do not speak, a certain level of understanding will be lost. A modern audience cannot watch a Shakespeare play – regardless of his universality and undying popularity – without some similar loss, due to language and pronunciation drift or simply lack of comprehensive knowledge of the politics and customs of his era. But watching something in a language you don’t speak doesn’t mean the words are lost, just that you are lost to them. The physicality of sign adds a rich dimension to an acting performance, but BSL is still a language; to interpret it as a physical theatre piece would be reductive and inaccurate. For non-signing members of the audience the words may have been absent but I’m sure audience members who did know BSL understood every word — possibly an experience they are not able to have with ‘traditional’ theatre performances.

In that context, performing in sign feels revolutionary. It’s flipping a paradigm in othering able bodied audience members – forcing them to stumble and reach that bit harder to stitch together comprehension. It’s shit that casting a deaf or disabled actress is considered revolutionary or remarkable at all, but maybe able bodied people (or members of any other privileged majority) would benefit from being othered a little bit. Like Rachel De-lahay said in her recent article on race in theatre: “We have to change the idea of normal.”

Which brings us back to van Hove’s startling and boundary-pushing (yet very white, and able-bodied) production. I’m sure Exeunt and the Stage have written hundreds of articles on watching theatre performed in a non-native language, so I won’t bother to give my opinion (mainly because I haven’t really formed one yet). The important point is no one considers a Shakespeare production performed in German or Dutch or Mandarin or hip hop to be anything but an artistic choice. In this context, the language barrier is considered a creative challenge to an intellectual audience, not an unfortunate accidental barrier. Why then is performing in sign perceived as something you have to put up with in order to meet diversity requirements, and not a unique skill bringing its own benefits and perspective?

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/van-hoves-dutch-shakespeare-and-bsl-on-disability-language-awkwardness-and-accessibility-in-the-arts/feed/0Nadia-Nadarajah1-credit-Simon-Kane-Photography-no-credit-Showpeople-wk-23-2014-1024x503naomiwesterman1Emma Watson’s breasts are not a feminist issue, or: Feminism is not the Hunger Gameshttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/emma-watsons-breasts-are-not-a-feminist-issue-or-feminism-is-not-the-hunger-games/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/emma-watsons-breasts-are-not-a-feminist-issue-or-feminism-is-not-the-hunger-games/#respondFri, 10 Mar 2017 18:53:10 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=211More]]>I’ve identified as a feminist since I was about nine, so you’d think I’d be thrilled with the fact feminism is so very much on everyone’s lips these days. And I am, but gosh is it bringing some problematic shit with it.

Over recent years I’ve noticed a growing trend: mainstream publications ask women in the public eye, usually very young women, challenging questions about feminism. Which is fine if done in good faith, but it’s a little weird to be reading an interview with some seventeen-year-old starlet who’s been famous for five minutes and see them go from being asked “how do you keep your hair so shiny?” to “how can white women in the public eye acknowledge their own privilege and support intersectionality in an industry that exerts enormous pressure on women to conform and stay silent?” And you know, I could answer that, because I’m in my 30s, I studied gender studies at grad school, and I run a fricking feminist theatre company. If I couldn’t answer it I should quit my job. Is it realistic to expect every woman or girl in the public eye to be able to handle complex and often highly politically controversial questions with a high capacity for blowback, with real intellectual insight and grace, when she’s just trying to promote American Pie 19: The Mortgage Years?

Again, fine to ask if done in good faith. But what inevitably follows makes me believe these questions are often not asked in good faith. Like the Bat Signal, the word goes out to “The Feminists” – journalists around the world phone up every woman who’s even a little bit famous who speaks on or publicly identifies as a feminist, to give that all-important feminist thumbs up or down. And that becomes the global news story: “So-and-so ‘not Doing Feminism Right’ claims other Feminists.” Then the Twittersphere goes to town. I could go into a long debate here about equality feminism and choice feminism and white feminism and the ways in which feminism has been exploited, but my gut reaction here is: who the fuck made you – or anyone – the Boss of Feminism? By all means have your own opinions and voice (and God knows this blog is just my opinion and certainly not an attempt to censor anyone). If you feel a woman’s behaviour is problematic, point it out. But do it on your own terms. When the patriarchal mainstream media comes a knocking you don’t have to let them in.

Most of the reasons behind this media trend are likely purely commercial: stories about tits and catfights sell a whole lot better than reasoned articles about Irish abortion laws. But I genuinely believe there is a patriarchal agenda to pit women against each other in order to debunk feminism and promote the idea that women are too “bitchy” or “contrary” for feminism to be a working proposition.

I am not being paranoid: In 2014, a group of MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) linked to an MRA troll campaign called ‘Operation Lollipop’ staged an underhand plot to create a hoax claiming that feminist organisations were campaigning to outlaw Father’s Day.
This is the best known of many troll campaigns and hoaxes on social media (remember #BikiniBridges?) The war on women is fought on many fronts.

Emma Watson has often spoken out about feminism. Emma Watson also possesses breasts, which she does not always keep covered up. Cue media and social media firestorm.

Now, there are lots of interesting potential areas for debate around Emma Watson (or Beyoncé, or Kim Kardashian, or Jennifer Lawrence, etc. etc.). I’d be fascinated by a proper debate on, for example, the ways in which female child stars balance their own interior journey through puberty to womanhood with publicly reinventing themselves as adult actors in the public eye and what that says about a culture in which youth and pubescence are exploited and commercialised. But I’m really not interested in giving Emma Watson marks out of ten for how well she’s “doing feminism.” Why is this so often the level of mainstream discourse? We’re talking about women’s lives, not their fifth grade book reports.

There is also a sense that if you are graded and found to not be doing feminism according to what the peanut gallery deems acceptable, you are somehow out of the club entirely. Caitlin Moran has said some problematic as hell shit, but she’s also written an awful lot of powerful and important things (her “farmer analogy” on the exploitation of the female body in pop music is the perfect example of how to succinctly sum up the insidious sexist pressure of pop culture industries without engaging in slut shaming or judging individual women for giving in to/subverting on their own terms [delete as you consider appropriate] that pressure). Amazingly it is possible to recognise that people can say stuff that is stupid and wise and problematic and incredibly important all in the same person; that anyone who never does is actually a bit weird, and that acknowledging and praising the good that people do and say does not (unless they are literally a serial killer, or Donald Trump) mean you are excusing the less-good. Caitlin Moran is powerful and famous enough to sail, like some majestic badger-haired swan*, above it all. Not everyone can – and there are problematic aspects inherent in insisting everyone have the capacity to adhere to a certain standard of debate (which can require a certain level of educational privilege) before they’re allowed a seat at the table.

Point being, it’s important to always have debates about feminist issues and because celebrities are such cultural lightning rods often their words and actions will by necessity spark debate. And we cannot ignore problematic behaviour or censor our own reactions to it. But when did online feminism start feeling so much like the Hunger Games? This is not a ‘stop attacking other women’ rant – well, it kind of is slightly a ‘stop attacking other women’ rant – but it behoves me to point out that feminism is not a competition, there are no medals for being the last woman standing. And you really don’t want to be the last woman standing.

*Obviously that simile doesn’t work at all, I just enjoy the imagery of a badger/swan mashup.

]]>https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/emma-watsons-breasts-are-not-a-feminist-issue-or-feminism-is-not-the-hunger-games/feed/0_e9638cd2-ff2a-11e6-a3af-7fa15638f741naomiwesterman1Who the Fuck is Rachel? Or: Take reviews with a pinch of salthttps://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/who-the-fuck-is-rachel-or-take-reviews-with-a-pinch-of-salt/
https://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/who-the-fuck-is-rachel-or-take-reviews-with-a-pinch-of-salt/#respondSun, 05 Mar 2017 17:51:25 +0000http://naomiwesterman1.wordpress.com/?p=195More]]>I recently spent time with a group of very talented playwrights, and one of the many running jokes that developed from our conversations is the ringing refrain: “Who the fuck is Rachel?” This said by a playwright who received a review criticizing the character of Rachel.

PLOT TWIST: There was no character named Rachel.

Point being, critics make mistakes. They’re human. There are some wonderful and knowledgable critics out there, but they have subjective opinions and likes and dislikes like anyone else. Good reviews are great for the ego, but ego is bad for making theatre. Unless you are opening a major Broadway show* and the NY Times is in, reviews aren’t that big a deal.

When I was an actor I regarded critics (and casting directors, and basically everyone) as near-omnipotent beings who must be appeased. (Mostly.**) This is nonsense, but learning how to deal with reviews is one of those things that no one ever teaches you, and regardless of how much advice you read it’s always an unexpected and surreal learning curve. A few lessons learned:

One of my plays comprised two separate plot strands. The first review I read praised plot B to the heavens as the saving grace lifting the potentially generic A plot above ordinary levels. The second review raved about plot A and complained that plot B dragged it down.

A couple of bloggers complained that a vital plot point was not explained, when it was made explicit in one line of dialogue. It’s easy to be defensive but it’s also important to consider to what extent they represent the audience. Did they zone out, or is the line just too easy to miss?

People will request comps and then not show up, or show up and not write a review. Obviously sometimes there are genuine emergencies (lovely critic who contacted me to apologise while ill – this is not aimed at you). But when you’re reliant on ticket sales to break even, an unused and unpaid-for £15 ticket for an otherwise sold-out show is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Seeing your cast and fellow creatives praised is even better than praise for your own work.

A review that loves your writing but hates your cast or director is a peculiar form of torture.

A critic that understands that all parts of a stage production – writing, acting and directing – work in harmony with and feed from each other, is a good one.

Glowing reviews are good for showing your mum and putting on funding applications and marketing material, but not much else.

Bad reviews aren’t necessarily more helpful than good ones, but they can be.

Some critics try to be as positive as possible, some delight in being scathing. Buckets of salt required in both cases.

If a critic says something truly stupid or plain wrong, say out loud: “Who the fuck is Rachel?” We’ll get it.

Don’t sweat it.

* If you are opening a major Broadway show: congratulations and do you want to be my friend?

**A short diversion: the first play I ever acted in as an adult received a terrible, terrible review after the first performance. Not just a bad review, but a thorough evisceration of everyone involved. It was personal and it was nasty. It was on an obscure blog, but it still gutted the cast, flopping around the dressing rooms gasping for air like fish hooked from the sea. Turns out the reviewer was an actor who’d been fired from the play after the read-through. Guess whose name I still remember ten years later and will never cast?